//------------------------------//
// Chapter XII: The Battle for Harmony 
// Story: Star Trek Online: Into The Multiverse 
// by Admiral Wyatt Stone 
//------------------------------//

The sea of space was bathed in darkness, surrounded by the planet's shadow as the battle ensued. The remaining Alliance ships struggled to hold off the ancient, yet advanced force of the I.S.S. Sacramento, while the Iconians were a race from 200 millennia ago, they still had some of the most advanced technology to present day, and after the assault on the Mirror Iconian homeworld, the Terrans must've gained whatever scraps they could find in the now dead empire's graveyard. The power that the Imperial starship had was strong enough for it to hold off three sister ships, fortunately for the Alliance fleet, they'd already brought down the ship's shields to almost a quarter left, at the cost of a few ships at least. Out of all of the remaining ships, the Equestria and the Enterprise were holding off anything and everything that the mutant starship was sending at them. On the bridge of the Equestria, Bon Bon was wiping the sweat from her forehead as she gave her next command. "Fire at their forward shields, hit them with everything we have!"


"You got it! They seem to have lost their port phaser on their saucer section, that should give us a little more support in breaking that beast's back." Lyra replied as she kept her eyes on the console.


Vinyl, stationed at the communications station, was keeping an eye out for any signals coming from their target when she found one. "Guys, they're trying to send out a signal, they're calling for help!" She alerted everyone with her words.


"Any ideas?" Dr. Hooves asked aloud.


"Hmm, maybe this'll do something to them!" She said before pulling out an data chip and inserting it into the console.


"What in the name of Celestia are you doing, Vinyl?!" Octavia asked in shock.


"Silencing the annoyance in front of us is what I'm doing." Vinyl replied with a cocky grin on her muzzle. It took a second before Octavia got what she was getting at. Vinyl nodded to Bon Bon to turn the comms panel on, she could then hear what the Terran communication was broadcasting, but it forced a hoof up to her ear upon hearing the noise, it was one of Vinyl's songs playing from the panel, and obviously seconds later, it began to show its effects.


Octavia gave a confident smile as she looked to her friend. "I guess loud and obnoxious things can save our lives sometimes." Vinyl nodded to her with a smile on her face before continuing her task on firing the ship's beam weapons. 


On the bridge of the I.S.S. Sacramento, Captain Wyatt had apparently grown annoyed by the enemy fleet's tactics, disrupting their call for help, eliminating the rest of his fleet, he was done playing the safe way, he looked to his tactical officer on the right as he ordered, "Lieutenant, we can't afford to let them overtake us, I need suggestions!"


The officer replied with, "We do have that one prototype console that we constructed out of salvaged Breen and Iconian technology, maybe we can stop them if we use it." 


The Captain then gave a grin as he remembered his other toy. "Ah yes, the Coma array, face us with all of the Alliance ships and fire when ready."


The officer nodded and tapped several buttons on his console before looking to the screen, after a moment, he then pressed on his console once more before the device did its work.


On the Equestria's viewscreen, the large cruiser grew a sky blue colored light from its deflector dish before firing a large, pulsing shockwave that shook all nearby ships within the field, upon impact, the ship shook violently before the viewscreen turned off in an instant, as well as all of the lights and consoles. Bon Bon looked perplexed as she asked in worry. "What just hit us?!"


Lyra looked puzzled with a hint of worry in her voice as she answered. "I don't know, Bon Bon, it looks like they fired some kind of power draining weapon at us! All systems are offline!" 


Derpy then flew her way to the nearby door before trying to open it, she groaned when it failed to open. "The doors are stuck too! It's like the ship was just knocked out!"


They then sat in the room as they waited for a rescue to come for them, Bon Bon then looked to another Starfleet officer before asking, "Sir, what about your combadge? Does it still work?" The officer then tapped it before he spoke.


"Equestria to Enterprise, respond!" A second passed before a voice sounded.


"Shon here, the fleets comms are out, we're having to use our combadges until we can get power back, are you alright?"


"Yes sir, it's good to know you're okay, we'll try to get the ship back up and running, good luck." Bon Bon said to the Captain as he finished.


"Got it, same to you. Shon out." The badge turned off before the Doctor spoke up.


"Vinyl, Bonnie, Muffin, do you mind in helping me with fixing the ship's power?" The mares in question nodded to him as they made their way to the nearby power relay in the back of the bridge. They hoped they'd be able to get the starship back on its feet before they were blown out of the sky.


In the atmosphere, Twilight sat in the center seat as she and her friends looked to the now fixed viewscreen that Applejack and Applebloom had just fixed, the princess looked to Pinkie Pie and asked her, "How far are we from the surface, Pinkie?"


"We're almost there, Twilight, a little more and we'll be able to kick those meanies' butts!" She said with excitement.


Twilight then turned to Rarity behind her and asked, "Rarity, if you could turn on the viewscreen please." She nodded as she tapped a few buttons before the screen came back to life with visuals. They didn't see any weapons fire, and from what they could tell, the fleet looked literally dead in space. Something must have gone wrong. Twilight looked to Rarity and asked her, "Rarity, can you tell what's wrong with our fleet?"


Rarity tapped on the console again before she gasped in worry before replying. "The fleet isn't showing any power signals, I think they might have been disabled somehow!"


The group gasped before Lon spoke up. "If I know the galaxy right and if it's a power drain, the only race I'm familiar with is the Breen, perhaps they took some of their technology and integrated it into their ship."


Twilight looked down for a moment before she tapped on her badge as she stared at the viewscreen. "Sacramento to Equestria, respond!"


"Bon Bon here, we're alive, but we're dead in the water, they must've used some sort of power drain on us!" Bon Bon's voice spoke from the combadge.


On the bridge of the ship's counterpart, the Terran captain heard a beeping noise from his lieutenant's console, who checked it and turned to him. "Sir, I'm picking up a few ships ascending from the planet's surface!"


"On viewer." The loyal captain growled to his officer. Upon appearing, Wyatt saw a large, damaged saucer section of an Odyssey class ship, as well as four smaller ships, three fighters and an Aquarius escort. "....Hello again, old friend." He murmured in annoyance.


On the Sacramento, the viewscreen showed the broken ship's counterpart slowly turning towards them. "Twilight, they notice us!" Rainbow Dash yelled out.


"Trying to finish us off now, huh? Magnify." Twilight ordered as the sight on the screen was blinked to show a closer view of the ship that was now facing them. A few seconds passed before they noticed a green glow emanating from the ship's deflector dish, the purple alicorn squinted her eyes for a moment before a small projectile shot from the light that now faded out. "Rarity, scan that device!" She nodded and tapped on her console and waited until the results came up, and they forced a horrified look on her face as she saw them. 


"Twilight, it's a container of torpedoes filled with thalaron radiation! If they get a single hit on us, we'll be dead in seconds!!!" The group gasped as they looked again only to see the projectile flash and split into eight other smaller torpedoes, which also gave off a green glow. 


Twilight tapped on her comms panel before ordering, "Spitfire, Minuette, take out those torpedoes! Don't let a single one hit the ship, or we're dead!"


"Got it!" The two mares replied before the three fighters and the Aquarius boosted at max speed towards the torpedoes.


Captain Wyatt looked on his screen with a victorious grin as he looked at the ravaged saucer trying to climb out of the atmosphere of the planet. Despite the fighters coming towards them, he knew he'd have them shot down before they could do anything about his weapons. He was finally going to see his lighter side he so despised perish before his hands, at least he thought that before his lieutenant turned to him with worry. "Captain, there's another ship incoming!"


As the torpedoes were making their way to the saucer, a blue flash appeared before forming into a portal, releasing a starship out from it's maw, which then began to fire phaser beams and gold quantum torpedoes at the small projectiles, destroying them almost instantly. The ship sped by the thalaron clouds sprouted from the now destroyed torpedoes before taking arms with the Sacramento.


On the screen, Twilight could see a familiar look on the ships hull, yellow and brown markings on it indicated to her that it was Wyatt's main personal ship, the Chestnut. The old lass came to save his man, a miracle to thank the Federation for later, as she looked to Pinkie with a smile and asked her, "Pinkie, hail them, I think we've got someone to praise for coming at the right time!"


Pinkie did so and tapped on the console before the screen flashed to show Admiral Quinn sitting in his friend's chair, giving a smile as well as he spoke. "Twilight, am I glad to see you still alive! Looks like we arrived at the right time!"


"Yep, you sure did, Admiral. Did our friends get to you in time?" Twilight asked with a curious look.


"Yes, and they also said that the Empire was attacking your homeworld that I just heard about, so I pulled the Chestnut out to lend you all a hand, but don't thank me for all the help here." The Admiral answered as he nodded to someone away from the screen, only for that being to come into view of the screen, she gave an excited smirk as she spoke out. 


"It looks like an old "frenemy" of yours has saved your flank this time, Twilight Sparkle!" Trixie teased her rival, who stood on her hooves upon seeing her.


"Trixie! I figured you'd show up at some point! You got pulled into that portal just like Starlight mentioned!" She said with glee to her rival.


Yes, and I also found out that you were also pulled into that same one as well, but now I've made it back, you could say I'm a skilled marksman with those torpedoes that we had. Say, Starlight didn't shed too many tears while I was gone, did she?" Twilight shook her head at her question, building a smile on Trixie's face.


Admiral Quinn then stood near Trixie as he asked with a slight hint of worry in his eyes, "Hey, Twilight, is Wyatt OK?"


She stood silent for a moment before she answered. "Admiral, he's hurt pretty bad, he nearly got killed trying to save us from crashing on the surface. But from what we know, he should make it out of this." The Admiral frowned at the fact of one of his great officers being in a rough situation until he spoke up again.


"I... I see. Let him know that I'm praying for him when this is over." 


Twilight nodded to him before she asked him, "So, about our "friend" over there, is there a way of stopping that ship?"


Quinn took a second before answering. "Well, from one of Captain Data's log entries from the Enterprise-E during the battle at the Bassen Rift, he fired a phaser at the Scimitar's thalaron generator before the ship was instantly destroyed by the blast. Maybe if we can get a good shot at wherever the origin point of those torpedoes are, we could get the same result."


Twilight took a moment before looking to Pinkie Pie. "Pinkie, what's the status in their shields?"


"Their shields are still up, but they're very weak, maybe if we had enough ships for a full shield drain,"


"I think we can do just that for you guys." Bon Bon cut in from the comms panel on Twilight's chair. "We just fixed our power and are ready to assist."


"Thanks Bon Bon." She said before looking to the screen again and replying. "Let's do it." The Admiral nodded before the screen cut back to the I.S.S. Sacramento, which was now hovering closer to the group of ships as they noticed the other Alliance ships coming to their aid.


Bon Bon could be heard speaking to the fleet as they neared the front side of the ship. "Ready.... fire!" The fleet, along with the U.S.S. Chestnut, fired several blue colored beams at the front side of the ship, the shield array around the Terran battleship flickering several times before they finally went down.


Admiral Quinn was then heard on the comms saying, "Fire cluster torpedoes, now!" The Chestnut then shot a turquoise projectile that glowed faintly as it flew towards the dish of the I.S.S. Sacramento.


On the ship's bridge, the Captain saw the weapon coming closer as he grew a furious frown on his face. Knowing what they were going for, he yelled at the top of his lungs, "LIEUTENANT, SEPARATE THE SAUCER, NOW!!!" The saucer separated and it's impulse engines glowed red as it tried to escape, but the ship was shot away as the deflector dish was hit, causing the stardrive section to explode in a blinding flash, almost completely disintegrating the ship as a few small pieces of debris flew away from the blast.


The crew cheered as they watched the last Imperial ship burn in fire from the torpedo blast, Twilight sitting back in her chair after everyone began to stop. "Excellent work, everyone! We did it!" The comms panel blasted with cheering from all of the ships in the fleet, Pinkie Pie then jumped out of her seat as she cheered again in excitement. Twilight then built a frown as she saw the saucer of the now destroyed warship, while she would've smiled at seeing the same scar that their ship had being on their target's, she kept her frown as she turned to Rarity. "Rarity, hail them. I think we'd like to have a word with them before they leave." She nodded with a frown as well before she tapped on her console and the screen changed to show the I.S.S. Sacramento's bridge.


Besides the rest of the room being filled with smoke, flames, and of course static, the crew noticed a single stallion, holding his flank and walking a little funny, made his way to the console and put one of the fires out, glaring at the near broken viewscreen as he began. "You mule, you've helped that bastard ruin my plans too many times already."


She growled angrily at the word "mule", quite an offence to make, he was lucky she wasn't going to shed his blood this time. "You better run while you still can, my friend, you should NEVER underestimate the power of an alliance."


He glared at the crew before he responded with hatred in his voice. "An alliance is a force that only the WEAK would join, you are the blind one, Princess!"


Celestia stood and faced him, her expression looking filled with anger as she replied. "No empire alone is strong, when you have friends at your side, you always have more strength, little or not. And you call us fools for choosing that?"


Twilight glared once more before she ordered, "You better leave while you still have a chance, I don't want to have to blow you out of the stars."


He growled one more time before speaking as he aimed for a button on the console. "This isn't over, Princess, next time we meet, your throat will be mine to slice." The screen blinked again before it changed to show the broken ship opening an orange colored rift and flying towards it.


"Twilight, should we let him go?" Dash spoke up as she looked to her.


Twilight smiled as she watched the ship flee into the portal before responding. "Yes, maybe he'll be able to let his superiors know of what happened here."


As the rift closed, Twilight's comms panel beeped before she answered it. "Yes?"


Fluttershy's voice sounded from the panel. "Hi Twilight, I'm happy to inform you that Wyatt is going to be okay, he's still a little hurt, but he should make a full recovery."


Twilight smiled with relief as they all heard her words. She then replied. "Thanks, Fluttershy." She turned to everyone in the room before finishing. "Everyone, let's beam down to the surface, I think it's time that we celebrate." Everyone cheered once more as Twilight then shut off the comms and trotted alongside the other princesses and into the turbolift and heading to the transporter room. Her world was finally safe from harm for the time being, and she felt that after all this time of dealing with diplomats and Imperials, she and her friends were going to need some relaxation before they go back to their work, not only that, but they had now made some new friends to celebrate with, friends that would help make this party a blast when they came home.....